I am currently en route to PML – Project Management and
Leadership – Conference, in which I get to bring a counterpart from my
community to do some leadership capacity-building. I am bringing Ángel, my community guide, as
my counterpart, because he is my favorite person in Quebrada Pastor.
It has long struck me that Ángel Caballero’s name is kind
of funny, because “Ángel,” of course, also means angel in Spanish. And “Caballero” means gentleman. And I cannot think of how many times I have
considered just how aptly named is this man.
I want to try paint a portrait of Ángel here, because he
has been the single most important Panamanian in my life here in Panamá.
Ángel is 40-some years old, husband, father of five,
grandfather of three, cacao farmer, handyman, chainsaw-operator, widely-respected
community leader, twice the host father and three times the homeowner for Peace
Corps Volunteers. He considers himself
more Panamanian than Ngöbe, though he can still speak and understand Ngäbere,
even if he would rather not use it. He
primarily speaks Spanish, but also knows an impressive amount of guari-guari,
the English creole language that many Afro-Caribbean residents of the Almirante
and Bocas Islands area use, and that many Bocatoreños learn in an attempt to
communicate with American and European tourists and do business with each other.
I met Ángel during my second week in Quebrada
Pastor. Lucas, my first community guide,
who came to meet me in Panamá for my site visit, was unavailable to show me
around, and so his wife directed me to Ángel’s house. When I arrived, Blanca, Ángel’s wife, told me
that he was out, but would be back soon.
I was desperate to have someone to guide me -- so I didn't lose myself in the jungle! -- so I sat and made small
talk, waiting for him – for three hours.
The wait finally paid off when he returned home, and we made a plan to
have him guide me around the community the following morning. And then I was glued to his side for weeks,
as he guided me to all the different parts of the community, spending entire
days pasear-ing with me so I could get to know some people.
Ángel is the one person I always feel comfortable asking
the awkward and challenging questions. “Why
does that woman have 6 kids, each with a different last name?” “To put it bluntly, Alex, it’s because she is
a woman of the street.” And he is the
one person in the community in whom I can confide about anything I experience
that makes me uncomfortable – even if my discomfort seems to be entirely a
matter of different culture. As a host
dad twice before, he understands my “gringo” perspective better than anyone
else. And he always allows me to feel
that all the feelings I have are completely valid. Ángel and his family are the only people in
the community in front of whom I feel like I can cry.
Ángel gets the concept of Peace Corps. Truly gets it. There are few people here that I have seen
embrace so completely the idea of sustainable development, but he preaches and
practices it all the time. He tells me,
“If your representative comes by and gives you $5 so that you can buy dinner,
that’s great, but what are you going to eat tomorrow? I want my representative to teach me
something that I can use the rest of my life.
I don’t want you just to give me a water tank. I want you to teach me how to make it,
because then I’ll have those skills forever.”
Yes, Ángel. That is exactly what
Peace Corps is trying to do. That is
exactly why I’m here. And he takes advantage
of the opportunities that come – whether working with me (to the greatest
extent possible), or receiving training from government programs that teach how
to improve cacao farming techniques and the like.
Ángel’s patience knows no bounds – he always gives me all
the time I need to say whatever I want, helping me through the Spanish as I
struggle to express myself, as I especially did, overcome with emotion, during
the first few months in site. He always
wants to hear what I have to say, and will wait the time to let me say it, as
cumbersome and unintelligible as it might be.
And then he miraculously understands what I am trying to communicate –
to the point that he can reinterpret my thought in a more concise manner to
anyone else who doesn’t understand me.
And he will always take the time to explain things so that I can
understand – whether it is a tradition with which I am unfamiliar, or words I
don’t know, or just anything that doesn't make sense to me – and he never makes
me feel bad or stupid for not understanding.
Ángel and I are truly work counterparts – we can sit for
hours bouncing ideas back and forth: How can we persuade these people that they
want to spend their money on a latrine?
Who would be the best person to help me teach about construction during
Tech Week? Why do these people not want
to work with me? What is the best way to deliver this message? How can I contact this person without walking
all the way to their house? I admire his
wisdom and insight, yet also his adaptability and open-mindedness. I think it makes us a great team. At the very least, I have a great time
working with him. In all the work that I
do, I have some days when I feel like everything is possible, and other days
when I feel like nothing is possible.
Days spent with Ángel tend to be Everything-Is-Possible days.
After all, Ángel is an incredible optimist. He asks me to address his doubts and to
assuage his fears about the work that we’re doing – and he always works through
problems with me until we can find a solution, addressing my doubts and
fears. He is endlessly resourceful – as
are most people in my community – and can often rely on this to make things
happen.
Ángel laments to me the mindset of people – like his
stepfather – who can’t see the bigger picture, who don’t understand the
strength that can come from working as a group, who ask only, “What’s in it for
me? I don’t care if I can’t personally
get anything out of this.” He always
works for the good of the community and is always willing to help out his
friends, family, and neighbors. He has
the vision to work toward greater change and improvement in the future, and he
tries to persuade others of it. This
ability strikes me as vital and special, since the same apathy that he laments
plagues the world over and obstructs positive change everywhere.
When I bemoan a social norm that I find detrimental –
something I will only ever say to Ángel – he jumps right on board with me: Yes, young people need to understand the
responsibility of parenthood before they go do things that result in having
children. Yes, it is better that they
stay in school and finish their education – after all, that’s what I insist on
telling my kids, he tells me. He asks me how someone can call themselves a Christian when they spend day and night praying and wearing white head coverings but don’t act in charity and compassion towards others.
We talk about world politics – he is always listening to
the news on the radio (which means most of the time he has a better idea of
what is going on than I do). We make
quips like, “How many aqueducts do you think we could have built with all that
Ebola prevention money / that baseball player’s salary / the money spent this
week on war / etc.?” We have talked about the impact
of the 9/11 attacks on the US and on the world, and how much the US damaged its
world reputation – from Panama’s perspective – by entering into the wars in the
Middle East, and therefore how important it is to have things like Peace Corps,
which show a different side of the US.
Ángel and Blanca seem to be equals and true life
partners. I have only ever seen them act
with mutual respect -- which is something notable in the culture that has a very different concept of gender relations than I do (I'll probably write a post about that later). Ángel is an affectionate father, who will get up
to rock and hold and comfort the baby, will take care of the grandkids, will
stay home and take care of the house when Blanca needs to leave the community.
Ángel recognizes the importance (especially in my culture)
in expressing appreciation. Gratitude is
not a big thing in Ngöbe culture – it is a culture of expected sharing,
probably developed long ago to aid in survival of the community, and so demands
and expectations are normal, whereas there are no words in Ngäbere that
explicitly express “please” or “thank you.”
But he always thanks me for everything I do, genuinely and sincerely.
I recognize that every individual in Quebrada Pastor is a
complex person. For example, my
relationship with my host family is complicated – Willy is a complicated
person, and as a result, my feelings about him are complicated. Ángel is by no means perfect, either – there
was that one time that he showed up to one of our meetings an hour late and
drunk (though he still proceeded to participate in the meeting), and there was
that one time that he ripped the lock apparatus on my kitchen door out of the
wall because I wasn't home and he needed something in the house (his house,
since I rent from him) – but unlike everyone else in the community, my feelings
are absolutely unequivocal about him. Aside
from being an impressive and amazing human being, he is my best friend in
Quebrada Pastor, a true mentor, and my real host dad, even if I lived in a
different house. I have been incredibly
lucky to have some really wonderful mentors, besides my parents – in high
school, college, and work (I hope I have sufficiently expressed as much to
those of you reading this to know who you are) – and he most certainly must be
added to that prestigious list.
Someday, I’ll figure out the best way to turn this all
into Spanish in a way that makes sense to properly express my gratitude directly
to Ángel himself. But for the moment, I
just want to paint a more vivid picture of Quebrada Pastor and my life here by
portraying one of the best things about the place. And aside from that, I’m looking forward to
spending the next week at PML learning together – just like all of the weeks!
